


hard reset

by jaegerjagues



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Five Times Plus One, Post Season Four, brain shenanigans, season four spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 13:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegerjagues/pseuds/jaegerjagues
Summary: Five times Hordak had to be reset, and the one time he didn't.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128
Collections: Shera





	hard reset

**Author's Note:**

> There is some weird brain surgery stuff; it's nothing overt, but it starts at FOUR and ends at FIVE.
> 
> It's loosely implied that Horde Prime has some kind of telepathic connection with his clones; I played a bit with that throughout this.

_one._

He is defective, and Horde Prime has requested his presence.

406943 leans his mop against the wall and marches toward the nearest lift, mechanic. The logical explanation is that Horde Prime has decided that it is finally time to decommission 40643, for a better crafted organic unit to take his place among the Horde army and mop the floors of these hallowed halls.

He has no feelings about being decommissioned, one way or the other. He and each of his brothers are all decommissioned in the end, either by glory on the fields of battle or by the mercy of Horde Prime’s directive.

Horde Prime’s throne deck is immaculate. 406943 had made sure it sparkled when he had mopped it, seven point three four standard hours ago.

It had been devoid of life forms, then, but now Horde Prime sits in state, legs crossed at the ankles, left hand propped beneath his chin. Foreign life forms sit on the steps before the throne.

406943 ignores them and kneels before his master, head bowed and fist over his heart.

Horde Prime sighs, heavy, and orders, “Rise.”

He does so, lacing his hands behind his back and standing at attention. He’s pleased to see the floor is still void of boot prints, though the luster he had cleaned it to earlier has waned.

There are, of course, two of his brothers in white behind Horde Prime. Always there, should their Emperor need anything.

But there are others here, too. Two of them that look nothing like Horde Prime or 406943, organic forms from some conquered planet.

He has not seen them before. One is purple, the other feline.

Fractures, behind his eyes. Light and glitter and a grating laugh. A tail that flicks, back and forth; claws that click-clack on steel plates. And something else: a feeling he doesn’t have a name for. A slick hot feeling in his chest that constricts his throat, makes the edges of his vision dim and darken.

Rage, a voice that is not Horde Prime’s whispers in the back of his mind. Rage, rage, rage.

And the same voice, trickle-soft, so quiet he nearly misses it under the crashing wave of emotion: Hordak.

He remembers, then, that he is more than a number. More than a clone with a mop and a bucket. That he was a lord, with an army.

Milliseconds pass between the time he remembers and when he lunges for Catra.

_two._

He is defective.

The brother who had greeted him, fresh out of reconditioning, had explained it. Defective: an adjective meaning imperfect or faulty. His defection is not explained to him, as this is information Horde Prime has deemed he does not need.

406943 does not question this. 406943 does not question anything. It is not his place to question; it is his place to serve.

But there is a question, on the tip of his tongue. About their coordinates, about the glowing planet they sit in orbit of, why looking at it gives him a sense of peace.

He finally finds the nerve to ask, three days after reconditioning. He sidles up to one of his superiors, one of the ones that’s allowed to have a spark of personality, and asks the name of the planet they orbit.

“Etheria,” is the answer he receives.

Etheria. He chews the word over as he mops, spells it with the mop on the floor with water as he goes. Like defective, it feels like a word he should know. One he should understand.

He’s in the middle of wringing out his mop when it hits him--Etheria. The Fright Zone. Failed experiment after failed experiment after failed experiment, all of them building up over the years as he kept trying to open a hole in the fabric of time and space to get word out to Horde Prime.

Hordak--for that is his name, the one he gave himself, is it not?--breaks the mop in two. How dare Horde Prime force him into reconditioning, make him forget his very identity? After every thing he had done in his name, had done for Horde Prime, the atrocities committed in his name.

The statacco sound of boots, ringing off the metal as they march down the hall draws his attention. They’re coming for him, this he knows--not much gets past Horde Prime, and Hordak doesn’t have to be a genius to know that the originator already knows hs personality has returned.

The downside of a hive mind, he supposes.

_three._

He is defective, and thus relegated to swabbing the floors with a mop taped together. He doesn’t know who broke it, but would like to have a word with them. It’s difficult trying to keep the floors pristine and sparkling on a normal basis, but with a broken mop it’s nearly impossible.

He does his best anyway. He needs to impress Horde Prime somehow, to move up in the ranks. He has his aspirations set on being one of his trusted generals one day, right hand or left doesn’t matter. To be one of Horde Prime’s trusted generals is a great honor, and 406943 wants it so bad he can nearly taste it.

A promotion from sanitary is going to be necessary, first of all. And to get that promotion, he’ll need a better mop, which calls for a stop by the requisition office. From there, it’s a two to three cycle wait as his request is processed, and then. Then he will have a new mop, and then a promotion, and from there who knows! The possibilites, while not limitless, are vast! He could be the head of sanitation by this time six cycles from now!

Feeling much better about himself and his broken mop, 406943 begins his work with a zeal he didn’t possess before. Blood is hard to clean once it’s dried, and he didn’t receive the cleaning order until after it had done so.

Apparently, one of his brother’s had lost their mind and committed mutiny, wiping out half a squadron before being subdued and sent off for reconditioning. 406943 wishes he knew which one it was, just so he could be on the lookout if it ever happened again. 371082 had told him just the other cycle that there were rumors that one of them was resistant to the reconditioning Horde Prime put them through; 406943 would bet a new mop that they were the same clone.

He’s nearly finished with the hall when he hears a rattle from the air vent. He ceases his mopping, curiosity eating at him. Nothing should be in the air vents, not even space rats.

He almost has the duct cover off when some small thing comes tumbling out, all tiny wings and pointy tail and pointier teeth. 406943 scurries back from it, startled.

The creature chitters, wings flapping wildly as it hovers in the air before him.

406943 points a finger at the winged beast. “Go away,” he tells it sternly, “before I have to report you.”

The creature’s yellow eyes narrow to slits, and he drops a few inches in the air as his wings slow. Then the creature opens it’s maw and, in a voice not entirely unlike his own, says, “Imp.”

“Shoo,” 406943 tries again, wiggling his finger.

“Imp,” the creature repeats, fiercer this time.

And then the little shit chomps down on his finger, ferocious.

But the pain is more than enough to knock something loose in his brain. “Imp,” he hisses, tugging his hand out of the little monster’s mouth

He has a name, and it’s--

It’s--

Okay, so he can’t recall it at this very moment. But the fact is that he has one. It’s something he gave himself, certainly. Something cool and suave, probably, that pays proper homage to Horde Prime.

Horde Prime, who keeps placing him in reconditioning every time he remembers . . . something. He can’t quite place his finger on what it is he’s forgetting, other than his name, but it must be knowledge that threatens his originator.

Boots, sounding on the floor. A contingent of them, coming for him. It’s a bit like deja vu, as though this exact thing has happened before.

He looks to the mop in his hand, the break between the two pieces, and he supposes it has.

_four._

He is defective. Horde Prime said so.

It is why 406943 is strapped down to the table, Horde Prime behind him. The originator hums to himself as he digs through 406943’s brain, needle pressing here and there experimentally.

406943 does not feel it. They had given him ‘the good shit,’ according to the woman with two different eyes and claws for hands.

“What is it that makes you so different?” Horde Prime asks. 406943 does not have an answer; different, he thinks, is another word for defective.

Horde Prime moves behind him, clothes rustling.

406943 opens his mouth. “There’s hydrogen then helium then lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon--”

Horde Prime moves again; 406943’s mouth closes.

“Note to self,” Horde Prime says, absorbed in his work, “don’t hit that spot again.”

406943 as no sense of time, until Horde Prime hits something else.

And then 406943 remembers that he has a name, one he gave himself. And that name is--

“Oh, damn it all,” Horde Prime curses. “I despise that I have to keep wiping you, you bastard.”

_five._

He is defective, and everyone avoids him.

It’s for the best, 406943 supposes. His defection could infect others, given enough exposure. Not that he knows what said defect is. Simply that he was.

His defection has relegated him to the sanitation crew, where he does nothing but scrub at scuff marks on the metal walkways with a rag and spray bottle. He isn’t even allowed a mop, because of his defection.

So he scrubs at the halls and the floor of the top deck on his hands and knees, and it takes him hours to make it through a single sector.

He’s mid-way through his second hall of the cycle when the klaxons begin blaring, red light bathing the halls like fresh blood.

406943 scrubs harder, intent on his work. He is not combat approved, and would just be in the way if he went to the armory with all of the others. He focuses on his task, scrubbing harder and harder as the klaxons whine overhead.

Minutes might pass, or hours, and the only time 406943 looks up from his work is when something beeps at him. It isn’t the wailing noise of the klaxons, it’s something softer, almost curious.

He looks up from his work to find a round robot before him, four spindly legs and a glowing purple lens.

The rotund robot makes what he can only describe as ‘excited’ beeps at the sight of him. 406943 frowns, because machines should not be capable of getting excited. They should not be capable of emotion.

They should not be able to tell him apart from his clone-brothers.

Someone has tampered with this robot, made it feel things it shouldn’t be capable of feeling. Given it a personality and a thought protocol.

The robot beeps again, then whirrs; on the wall, it projects a woman in oil-spattered coveralls with purple pigtails. She’s in the middle of saying something, it seems, because the audio cuts in with an obvious click.

“--artner! Just a few more tweaks and I’m sure we’ll have this portal up and running in no time!”

406943 tilts his head to the side, takes a step closer to the projection. There’s something about this woman, the way she speaks, that’s oddly familiar.

His mind fractures. Pain, as he remembers the Fright Zone, the robot Emily, Entrapta. A purple gem in clawed fingers. A laugh that grates on his ears. Betrayal after betrayal after betrayal.

He is Hordak.

And Horde Prime is going to pay.

_(and--)_

He is defective.

Entrapta does not care. She doesn’t mind that there are swaths of his mind that are as vast and unknowable as black holes, that he can be in the middle of a sentence and forget what he was going to say.

She grins at him each time as though his mind is not scrambled. Says, “You’re still the best lab partner,” when she thinks he needs cheered. Gently reminds him that he has a name, Hordak, when he won’t answer to anything but his designated number. Finds him in the halls of her castle in Dryl and reminds him that he doesn’t have to mop the floors, they have robots for that.

Sometimes, remembering that he isn’t on Horde Prime’s flagship is hard. Other times, he forgets that he was on the flagship at all, that Horde Prime had gotten his message and turned on him in the same breath.

There are some days that Hordak fears he might wake up and be 406943 again, permanantly. That he’ll be back on the flagship with a mop pressed into his hands, Entrapta and Horde Prime’s defeat nothing but some odd fever dream impressed upon him during reconditioning.

But Entrapta is always there, helping him remember who he is and who he used to be in the quiet hours of the night, plying him with tiny food and a smile she has saved just for him.

Living like this is hard, but it isn’t awful.

He just has to reset occasionally.

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> [This is the song Hordak sings in FOUR.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwiooJyIyK7nAhUNsJ4KHekOD40QwqsBMAh6BAgNEAs&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov)
> 
> come join me on [twitter!](http://twitter.com/munchlaxe)


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